5 ways to refind your mojo to grow and scale your business
How to get yourself out of a funk and kick start your motivation and zest to grow your business. Even if you’ve in a bad spot and considering chucking it all in.
Welcome to a free edition of Start Up To Grown Up: Your source for ideas, insights and tactics to take back control of your business and scale it sustainably and profitably by Heather Townsend, award-winning author of The Accountants’ Millionaires’ Club and Founder of The Accountants’ Growth Club.
This weekend I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with the person who, whilst she denies it, is the reason I started my own business. I didn’t grow up surrounded by small business owners or entrepreneurs. Indeed my Dad tried to go it alone and the business failed. You could say, I grew up knowing the best way to make a living was to get a good job. My friend took the path to being a business owner ten years before me. So between us, we’ve got 40 years of navigating the ups and downs of being a small business owner.
Boy are we tired right now. That was the main thread of our conversation over the weekend. The tiredness that seeps into your bones and becomes part and parcel of your daily life. Both of us have been pulled back into being the most chargeable person in our business AND also run the business. Whilst this is nice for a short time. After all it is an ego boost and the profit is nice. Working long, long hours takes it out of you.
Scaling a small business into a decent sized asset to sell is not for the faint hearted. I’m not talking getting to the dizzy heights of a business turning over £1 million pounds either. Any payroll over £10k a month can play with your mind. And not in a good way.
Given our respective ages, it is not surprising that both of us are thinking about growth as a means of building capital value on exit for our respective pensions. But that means we both need to fall in love with our business again.
Both of us know we are unemployable which means, as we said many times over the weekend,
There is no plan B for our business
This means refinding our zest and desire to scale our business.
Both of us are carrying the scars of the last 4 years. We have both emerged from the last 4 years more weary, more cynical and less trusting of people generally. That’s not a great place to be! With an impending budget where the small business owner is in the cross hairs of the chancellor’s income raising sights, we know it’s just going to get harder from November onwards.
The question is, how do you find that mojo? Or rid yourself of that feeling of intense tiredness, particularly when ‘take a month off’ is not an option.
That’s the focus of this article.
There is no plan B
It’s very easy to get stuck and feel trapped as a small business owner. I liken it to building yourself a prison, banging yourself up in your cell and then throwing away the key. Whilst still telling the outside world that “business is good” and “things are going well”.
It’s at this point I am going to now remind you that there is no plan B. Getting a job normally isn’t an option. Plus, will it give you the requisite income to keep you comfortable in retirement?
You got yourself into this mess. That means you need to get yourself out of this mess. That means digging deep into your energy reserves to find the will to start the process to change your circumstances. There is a reason you’ve made it this far as a business owner. It’s because you have ‘balls of steel’ and the ability to bounce back from most things chucked at you. Well now is the time to remind yourself that you have got through worse and remember you’ve got what it takes to navigate out of this particular sticky moment.
You have a choice. Now is the time to make that choice.
Get support
Spending the weekend with a good friend was a tonic to my soul. My husband is great but he really doesn’t understand the crazy world of being a small business owner. It’s the same for many of our clients. Friends and family, however well meaning, often just don’t get the crazy levels of pressure that we put ourselves under to push our business from a troubled teenager into that self assured mature adult. One which will have enough value to fund our retirement when we exit.
I am writing this article on a flight back from Edinburgh. I know I need more support. Often the hardest point is articulating you actually need more support. For me does it need to be a coach? No. The support I need is to start implementing the plan to reduce my workload again. That means spending time with my operations manager to work out what those steps will be.
Be kind to yourself
This time last year my health was pretty bad. I was fatigued and gaining weight. I thought it was due to a nutritional deficiency. Being a coeliac means that I’m only one meal away from a few months of chronic fatigue! The blood tests came back ‘all clear’. The problem? Perimenopause linked with a historically damaged gut.
It’s taken me nearly a year to get my hormones balanced and my gut healed to the point where it doesn’t flip out at the slightest hint of stress or some forbidden foods getting in me. And when I say forbidden I’m talking about potato starch, ‘natural’ low calorie sweeteners like stevia etc.
In the last year I have just not had the energy to get back on my mountain bike and head off for an hour’s ride or so. But I’m feeling the draw to get back on the bike. I knew that pushing myself to get back on the bike would have just led to an afternoon asleep and being shattered the next day.
It’s the same with you and your business. Don’t expect yourself to suddenly be able to put all the hours in again. You need time to nourish your body. That means prioritising sleep, good food, head space and exercise. The impact of long periods of stress can remain for years and years in your body. Don’t under estimate how long it will take to shake off the tough years.
Get accountability
Sometimes you need to show up, do the work and in the process fall back in love with your business. Just like myself and writing this substack. I’d fallen out of love with writing. Whereas, 9 or so articles deep into the substack I am starting to enjoy the process again. Yes, the mojo is coming back. Perhaps not to the level where I can sense a book is ready to be written, but definitely coming back.
Thankfully I have currently got enough discipline, energy and concentration to write an article weekly. However, if I was still struggling I would reach out and ask for accountability. That could be from a coach or friend or even a staff member in your business. Until your head is back in the right space, use someone else to help you get yourself back into the game.
Remember your why
I was speaking with a new member of The Accountants’ Growth Club this week. We both admitted that we had come close on several occasions over the last year to closing the business and getting a proper job. For me when I start to look at the Tesco Checkout staff and envy them their jobs I realise that I am going through a tough time. Then I go through a well trodden mental path. The path? It takes me from what it would take to close or sell the business. Then what I would do after that. Then I realise I would be bored in 3-6 months and regret selling the business. After all, it’s much easier to sort out an established business than grow a new business from scratch.
What’s your why for doing this thing called business? Has your why changed? I ran some numbers on my likely income during my retirement. It made sobering reading. Funnily enough my why has now extended a little. It’s not just about running a business to keep me out of mischief and challenge me. It now needs to build a healthy pension pot so I can retire completely at the age of 60 if I so wish!